Devices for effecting movement of articles, for example cans, bottles, and the like, utilizing fluid (normally air) are now well known (see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,500,229).
Now known fluid conveyor systems used for movement of articles commonly use a deck plate having apertures therein and inject the fluid under pressure through the apertures at an angle with respect to the deck plate to provide fluid drive to move articles adjacent to the deck plate, and also sometimes inject fluid through other apertures vertical to the deck plate to lift the moving articles from the plate to reduce friction as the articles are moved relative to the deck plate (see, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,347,022, 4,730,956, and 4,732,513).
Where the deck plate utilized had sufficient thickness (normally a thickness much greater than the diameter of apertures therein used for fluid injection), the apertures could be formed at an angle with respect to the surface adjacent to the article path to thereby inject the fluid at an angle and thus provide fluid drive to move articles along the article path (see, for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,369,005, 4,561,806, and 4,568,223). It was found, however that this type of fluid driver, could be sensitive to contaminates in the fluid commonly found in a plant environment due to the length of the aperture passage, and this, at least in some cases, resulted in partial, or even complete, passage blockage.
To overcome use of long aperture passages, it has been suggested that a thin deck plate (normally a plate having a thickness substantially no greater than the diameter of the apertures in the plate to be used for fluid injection) be used. Due to the lack of thickness of the thin plate, however, apertures formed therein were found to be incapable of injecting fluid through the apertures at a sufficiently concentrated angle to thereby provide acceptable fluid drive of the articles.
To provide for fluid injection through a thin plate at a sufficiently concentrated angle and thus provide acceptable fluid drive to articles, several arrangements have heretofore been suggested and/or utilized. One such arrangement is to provide a slot at the deck plate by severing a portion of the deck plate and bending the severed portion away from the plate to allow fluid to pass through the thus formed slot (see, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,105,720, 3,180,688, 3,647,266, 3,684,327, 3,734,567, 3,953,076, 3,975,057, 3,999,806, 4,010,981, 4,229,861, and 4,392,760). The slot arrangement has, however, been found, at least at times, to inject too much fluid at nearly a horizontal angle with respect to the deck plate, resulting in unacceptable article damage.
Another such arrangement for use in injecting fluid through apertures in a thin deck plate involved utilizing two plates each having apertures therein and positioning one of the plates over the other plate with the apertures in the plates partially offset from one another to provide a directional component to fluid injected through the apertures (see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,475,058). The dual plate arrangement, however, has been found to sometimes collect dirt at the top plate apertures resulting, at least in some cases, in an unwanted change in the angle of fluid injection.
Still another article injection arrangement for use with a thin deck plate involved providing an aperture in the curved side wall of a depression in the deck plate so that fluid injected through the aperture would be at an angle with respect to the deck plate (see, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,477,764 and 4,828,434). It was found, however, that the needed angle of discharge of fluid through the aperture in the curved surface could normally not be uniformly and/or satisfactorily achieved, due, at least in part, to the manufacturing steps required to form the deck plate.
While devices have also been heretofore suggested and/or utilized for providing turns in the path of articles being fluid conveyed, such devices have not been completely successful, at least in some cases, in providing such turns at an acceptable rate of movement of the articles along the path, without causing undue disruptions due to article blockages and/or without inflicting unacceptable damage to the articles being moved along the path.